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coley_reads's reviews
294 reviews
Palo Alto by James Franco
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
“A marriage doesn’t begin with a proposal, or even an initial meeting. It begins far earlier, when the idea of love is born, and more specifically the dream of a soul mate.”
“Objective knowledge doesn’t come into it. What matters instead is intuition, a spontaneous feeling that seems all the more accurate and worthy of respect because it bypasses the normal processes of reason.”
“His understanding of love will for decades retain precisely the structure it first assumed at the Hotel Casa Al Sur in the summer of his sixteenth year. He will continue to trust in the possibility of rapid, wholehearted understanding and empathy between two human beings and in the chance of a definitive end to loneliness. He will experience similarly bittersweet longings for other lost soul mates spotted on buses, in the aisles of grocery stores, and in the reading rooms of libraries.”
“For a Romantic, it is only the briefest of steps from a glimpse of a stranger to the formulation of a majestic and substantial conclusion: that he or she may constitute a comprehensive answer to the unspoken questions of existence. The intensity may seem trivial – humorous, even – yet this reverence for instinct is not a minor planet within the cosmology of relationships. It is the underlying central sun around which contemporary ideals of love resolve.”
“It will take Rabih many years and frequent essays in love to reach a few different conclusions, to recognize that the very things he once considered romantic – wordless intuitions, instantaneous longings, a trust in soul mates – are what stand in the way of learning how to be with someone. For his relationships to work, he will need to give up on the feelings that got him into them in the first place. He will need to learn that love is a skill rather than an enthusiasm.”
“Love means admiration for qualities in the lover that promise to correct our weaknesses and imbalances; love is a search for completion.”
“Love reaches a pitch at those moments when our beloved turns out to understand, more clearly than others have ever been able to, and perhaps even better than we do ourselves, the chaotic, embarrassing, and shameful parts of us. That someone else gets who we are and both sympathizes with us and forgives us for what they see underpins our whole capacity to trust and to give.”
“For all the talk of sexual liberation, the truth is that secrecy and a degree of embarrassment around sex continue as much as they have always done. We still can’t generally say what we want to do and with whom. Shame and repression of impulse aren’t just things that our ancestors and certain buttoned-up religions latched onto for obscure and unnecessary reasons: they are fated to be constants in all eras – which is what lends such power to those rare moments (there might be only a few in a lifetime) when a stranger invites us to drop our guard and admits to wanting pretty much exactly what we had once privately and guiltily craved.”
“They haven’t just had sex; they have translated their feelings – appreciation, tenderness, gratitude, and surrender – into a physical act.”
“These past histories of self-division are part of what makes the beginning of their relationship so satisfying. There is no more need for subterfuge or furtiveness between them. Although they have both had a number of partners in the past, they find each other exceptionally open-minded and reassuring. Kirsten’s bedroom becomes the headquarters for nightly explorations during which they are at last able to disclose, without fear of being judges, the many unusual and improbable things that their sexuality compels them to crave.”
“The particulars of what arouses us may sound odd and illogical, but – seen from close up – they carry echoes of qualities we long for in other, purportedly saner areas of existence; understanding, sympathy, trust, unity, generosity, and kindness. Beneath many erotic triggers lie symbolic solutions to some of our greatest fears, and poignant allusions to our yearnings for friendship and understanding.”
“The success of any relationship should be determined, not just by how happy a couple are to be together, but by how worried each partner would be about not being in a relationship at all.”
“We believe we are seeking happiness in love, but what we are really after is familiarity. We are looking to re-create, within our adult relationships, the very feelings we knew so well in childhood and which were rarely limited to just tenderness and care.”
“At the heart of a sulk lies a confusing mixture of intense anger and an equally intense desire not to communicate what one is angry about. The sulker both desperately needs the other person to understand yet remains utterly committed to doing nothing to help them do so. The very need to explain forms the kernel of the insult: if the partner requires an explanation, he or she is clearly not worthy of one. We should add: it is privilege to be the recipient of a sulk; it means the other person respects and trusts us enough to think we should understand their unspoken hurt. It is one of the odder gifts of love.”
“It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we should begin to be concerned, for this may be the surest sign that we are being gently lied to or shielded from the other’s imagination, whether out of kindness or from a touching fear of losing our love.”
“The business of repatriating emotions emerges as one of the most delicate and necessary tasks of love. To accept the risks of transference is to prioritize sympathy and understanding over irritation and judgment.”
“One principally focused on a quest to find love rather than to give it, to be loved rather than to love.”
“Children teach us that love is, in its purest form, a kind of service. We are used to loving others in return for what they can do for us, for their capacity to entertain, charm, or soothe us. Yet babies can do precisely nothing.”
“Gratitude will come to them only indirectly, through the knowledge that she herself will, one day, have a sufficient sense of inner well-being to want to do this for somebody else.”
“Like with kids if we could too in our adult relationships, look past the grumpiness and viciousness and recognize the fear, confusion, exhaustion which invariable underlie them.”
“As parents, we learn another thing about love: how much power we have over people who depend on us and, therefore, what responsibilities we have to tread carefully around those who have been placed at our mercy.”
“Sexual desire is driven by a wish to establish closeness – and is hence contingent on a preexisting sense of distance, which it is a perpetually distinctive please and relief to try to bridge.”
“The modern expectation is that there will be equality in all things in the couple – which means, at heart, an equality of suffering.”
“The best cure for love is to get to know them better.”
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
“Think of two people living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them! The doorway into the kitchen has been built too narrow. Two people in a hurry, with plates of food in their hands, are apt to keep colliding here.”
“Breakfast with Jim used to be one of the best times of their day. It was then, while they were drinking their second and third cups of coffee, that they had their best talks. They talked about everything that came into their heads.”
“A local newspaper editor has started a campaign against sex deviates (by which he means people like George.) They are everywhere, he says; you can’t go into a bar anymore, or a men’s room, or a public library, without seeing hideous sights. And they all, without exception, have syphilis. The existing laws against them, he says, are far too lenient.”
“A senator has recently made a speech, declaring that we should attack Cuba right now, with everything we’ve got, lest the Monroe Doctrine be held cheap and o no account. The senator does not deny that this will probably mean rocket war. We must face this fact; the alternative is dishonor. We must be prepared to sacrifice three quarters of our population (including George)… They should never be dealt with amusingly. They understand only one language: brute force.”
“What do they think they’re up to, here? Well, there is the official answer: preparing themselves for life, which means a job and security in which to raise children to prepare themselves for life which means a job and security in which.”
“Someone has to ask you a question before you can answer it. But it’s so seldom you find anyone who’ll ask the right questions. Most people aren’t that much interested.”
“Jim lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other’s presence.”
White Man's Justice, Black Man's Grief by Donald Goines
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Sexual assault
The Hustler by Walter Tevis
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Beginning was good. Middle was boring. Last 120 pages it picked up. Took so long to get started.
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.
"You know what talent is? The curse of expectation." - The Mist
"Terror is the widening of perspective and perception." - The Mist
"Terror is the widening of perspective and perception." - The Mist
The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
It by Stephen King
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Loved the characters. Started great. Then half way through I was tired of Henry bowers and the bullies. Too long for me. First 700 pages were amazing and then got bored and skimmed the last 300 pages.